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Google’s search options were designed to allow users to refine their searches. That means users will use these to weed out irrelevant results and better find what they’re looking for.
It also means that there is a whole new set of guidelines that search engine marketers will need to think about…or does it? Perhaps it’s just the same guidelines, only emphasized to the user more now, thereby making it more important than ever for marketers and web site owners to consider them. How do you intend to handle your SEO efforts with the new changes? Tell us about it.
I asked a few search engine marketing experts if they think the options will affect SEO. Here are a few responses I got:
Bill Slawski of SEO By the Sea says: "Web Options have the potential to impact SEO by offering a much wider range of ways to find information. Whether or not they will may have to do with whether or not searchers will take the time to click on the ‘show options’ link, and explore the many new ways that they can find what they may be looking for."
Lee Odden of Top Rank Online Marketing says: "Yes! But it doesn’t change the SEO advice we give: fresh content, digital asset SEO…"
"From what I am seeing, the ‘search engine optimization’ industry is actually turning back around to what it used to be: good old fashioned website marketing," says WebProNews Blog Partner Bill Hartzer, commenting on an SEOmoz post.
"It’s not only ‘optimizing a website’ and ‘getting links.’ SEO is involving more nowadays: you have to get your site in front of real people and real traffic," he continues. "It’s also about using social media marketing techniques, as well. If you’re successful in social media you’ll be successful in search. If you can get lots of real people to a site then you’ll be successful in SEO."
In other words, it’s all about optimizing for people. That’s all the search engines have ever wanted, and that’s all the searchers have ever wanted out of content – to be able to find what they’re looking for. It’s easier said than done, but all you have to do is help them find you.
So considering that, why not take a few moments to examine just what these new search options are that are available to users. Let’s think about what it would take to have your site show up for each option.
Videos
Obviously, ranking for searchers using the video option is going to require the use of video. Though online video adoption has certainly grown substantially in the last year or two, many are still quick to doubt its importance despite the search engine ranking implications that have been discussed in the past. To me, it looks like it just got even more important, given that sorting by videos is the top option in Google’s new search options (just below "all results" – the default option).
Based on several test queries, it looks like it’s going to comedown to relevant keyword use with videos. Whether that be with videos on your own site, YouTube, or other locations. Doing video interviews with other content providers will likely work in your favor here as well.
Within the Videos option, you have the sub-option to see videos of all durations, short ones, medium-length ones, or long ones. This tells me you will probably do well to produce videos with a variety of different lengths.
Forums
The next option is to sort by forums, and this appears to be another obvious one. Participate in forums. It just so happens that I
discussed online forum participation about a week ago. To me, it’s just part of the overall social media marketing package. Forums might as well be social networks, whether they are called so or not. Now that users can easily search Google by forum results, it makes more sense than ever to participate and gives you a better chance of promotion.
Just like any other form of online marketing, ethics should always be considered. It’s not going to make you look good if you just go into a forum and spam it. It’s about participation. Discussing topics related to your business should provide the natural flow of keywords, and potentially help you rank well in this section.
Reviews
In my test searches, "Reviews" results seem to come from pages that indicate that they are just that – reviews. This leads me to believe that you want to get your product reviewed as often as possible, or conduct reviews of other products on your site in order to show up in these results. It also tells me that you want reviews to be clearly marked as such. This tells Google that they are in fact reviews. On a sidenote, this might be a very important option to monitor from the online reputation management standpoint. If people are out there reviewing your product, this is a good place to see those reviews.
Sort them by date, and you will be able to see them from the most current, which will help you keep up with new ones. Just hope that whoever is reviewing your product is clearly marking their reviews as reviews. Pages in these results tend to say the word "review" on the page or in the title tag.
Sorting Options
Google gives users the option to see results from the past 24 hours, the past week or the past year, in addition to anytime. They also give you the option to sort by relevance or by date – a long overdue option if you ask me, and one that has been available on Google News for quite some time.
I would say that these sorting options indicate that frequent content and updates are in order if you want your content to appear here. How else are you going to rank for time-sensitive results?
Images from the Page
Users have the option to have their results show images from the page right on the SERP. This option (at least in some cases) brings up different results than if the option is not enabled. I’m going to have to make an educated guess and say that providing plenty of relevant and optimized images will help your cause when optimizing for this search option.
More Text
Under the "Images from the Page" option is the "More Text" option, which basically just provides the same results as a regular search, but includes longer snippets. I think this is just going to comedown to classic use of keywords and just good-old-fashioned good content, because just like any other snippets, keywords are bolded.
If there are more keywords within a longer snippet, that means there will be more bolded words, which could make the result stand out, but if that good-old-fashioned content isn’t surrounding those keywords, they will be worthless because now the user will have more to read before they click through to your site. If it’s not relevant to what they’re looking for, they have a better means of realizing it before the click.
Standard Results
More Text
Related Searches
As with the sort-by options, I’d say frequent content again is key again here. Optimize for items that are related to other topics you rank for. Basically just optimize for a broad spectrum of topics related to what you do while staying relevant (btw, being deceptive will hurt you in the long run, ranking or no ranking).
Wonder Wheel
Similar to the related searches option, the Wonder Wheel gives the user a way to navigate through related searches in a more visual way. It’s a graphical representation of related search terms, though they are not always the same as the ones found in "related searches." From an optimization standpoint though, I would say the same tactics would apply here.
Timeline
The Timeline groups results by dates referred to on actual pages. What this says to me is: include dates in your content when relevant. Another good thing about this is that it gives you the opportunity to get older content viewed, and in its right context. If users are using the timeline and select older dates, they’re most likely looking for content from that period.
This reflects better on your site than if your older content was showing up in a regular web search, where a user might be confused into thinking the content is more current than it really is, which could ultimately have a negative impact on your reputation depending on how time sensitive the data is.
Wrapping Up
To be clear, these are just theories. To the best of my knowledge, there is no concrete answer for how to get ranked in any of these sections. We are after all talking about ranking on Google. I feel like these strategies will only increase your chances of getting found with each option though. It comes down to providing what people are looking for. Search options from Google should be applauded and embraced, because as a content provider and/or a business, you also have more options with regards to which Google results your content will be found in.
Also, keep in mind that paid listings still appear in the results for these options. The same paid listings appear regardless of which option is selected however. And don’t forget that users have the ability to use multiple options at the same time. For example, reviews can be listed from most recent to oldest.
Do you feel that search options will help or hurt your chances of potential customers finding your listings? Do you like the features or do they irritate you? Let us know either way.
Yes ….! i had tried this all option as well…but in many search phrases, when using Wonder wheels I got irrelevant result….may be Google is working on it…who knows.
You’re right. It’s certainly not perfect, and perhaps they are working on it, but I would imagine there are tactics that webmasters can use to better increase their chances for connecting their content to related content.
I have tried many ways but remains as mr. priyank can not get the results that satisfy me, so for the other suggestion awaited
We believe there could be an increase in your hours spent working on or outsourcing your SEO due to Google’s new search options.
This post did a wonderful job at opening up awareness and providing a clear understanding of what actions need to be taken in your business because of Goggles’ new search additions.
We feel that becoming knowledgeable about Goggle’s changes and implementing the strategies mentioned will really give you the chance to get your site in front of the traffic and people who are looking for it.
There were lots of great strategies given that are worth taking action on and reiterating such as:
- create videos,
- participate in social networking and forum sites,
- write reviews,
- create frequent content and updates,
- provide plenty of relevant optimized images,
- surround good old-fashioned content with keywords,
- optimize for a wide range of related topics in your market,
- and include dates in your content when relevant.
When you use all the strategies advised together you’ll have more bait (content) placed into the search engine thus making all your content an easier catch (choice) for searchers.
The reason we particularly like this post is because it hips you on to simple SEO. Information that at the same time is priceless, all for free, and gives you strategies to use for getting better search results which we – SistaWAHMs, see as being an ultimate Free Money Tactic!
SistaWAHMs gives this post 2 Thumbs Up! Thanks for such a great strategy, because we’re Shareahlics that love to share we just shared this with our friends on: Twitter @SistaWAHMs, Plurk, BlogCatalog, Social browse, FreindFeed, Mybloglog, plus all of our favorite bookmarking sites and more as our way to say Thanks!
Thanks for sharing! I think it really is about getting back to the basics like Mr. Hartzer said (as quoted in the article). The breaking down of the search options simply highlights a lot of the needs, some of which may go overlooked by webmasters/business owners/marketers.
That is a really great article. One thing that irks me is that a slighest change in Google can have such huge impact on every web business!
Google ranking has turned into a full time job for our business. Google seems to have us on a roller coaster. One slight change and were sitting at the other end of the scales.
Man it would suck and so be abused if Google used peoples personal favorites to rank sites.
What get’s me the most is that they constantly are changing and not always for the better, heck it’s not possible to always change for the best. Too much change can be the downfall to any business – big or small.
There’s much room for improvement we all know that, but it really comes down to quality content. So much of Google is full of utter crap that we legit sites have to work harder to keep things in play.
Snerdey
The new options presented by Google seem like they’d be useful in specifying content.
I’m sure they’ve been testing it as much as possible, but the true test will be when it goes live.
I’m interested to see the Timeline option and the Wonder Wheel option as well.
I’d also think that if people are using these functions, then they have something very specific to go after. When searching for something in a general sense, like you’re not sure where to start… To me, that’s where SEO would shine best, I’d think.
Great article Chris – thanks for sharing. I thought I was missing out then logged out of my Google account and saw the new options.
Interesting that Google haven’t added blog search to the options!
I guess they’re just keeping blog search separate for now. Google News, Google Image Search, Google Video are separate as well. The options are really just for regular web search at this point.
Yeah, this is interesting. I’ve been playing around with that search the past few days. I’m not so sure that the common user will even know it’s there though. I’ve asked some of my clients and they don’t even know anything about it. So it really seems to only effect the real tech type public right now. But I can see this having an effect on SEO in the near future. I don’t think it will be a negative one, rather I think it will give website owners more exposure.
I’m not sure if it will be used only by the tech savvy. It hasn’t been there that long yet. I think a lot of people will gradually just begin to realize the “show options” link is there and decide one day to click it and see what it’s about. At that point, it will be interesting to see how frequently the options are used.
Lately, when querying, I’ve been getting, as the first google return, a link to a short excerpt of an article about what I’m searching about, with a link to BUY the rest of the article. This is REALLY annoying in the extreme, since it means the first return is least relevant, IMHO, since there’s no way I’m going to pay for the information I’m looking for. I believe the domain is, in most of these cases, encyclopedia.com. Now I can filter that domain out of my search queries. I suspect that if enough people do this, then eventually the articles from encyclopedia.com will plummet in the SERPS. That’s a good thing.
Honestly Google has once again changed the logic and added usefull tools to the web. As an SEO professional who believes in solid content, I believe that what google is doing will widen the reach of several business models provided business takes advantage of all the great tools out there. MORE REACH EQUALS MORE CONVERSIONS….period.
I was nervous about what this would mean but honestly, I think it is a great move.
It is a re-focus on quality that has been long overdue.
My websites are benefiting, I have always based the development around useability and accessibility.
Well done google!
I just want to say a big thank you for all that you do and the great advice that you continually put out for all of us.
Keep up the great work.
Terry S
“That means users will use these to weed out irrelevant results and better find what they’re looking for. ”
Let’s hope you’re right Chris, Thanks for the article. Can’t wait to see what ideas some of your experienced Web Pro News contributers come up with.
I do not foresee these new options being used by the average user much at all. People in our society today are too lazy to bother with them. However I can definitely see the value of the timeline options where researchers are concerned.
When it comes to searching people are basically lazy and advanced search options r nothing to be changing your SEO business plans over.. yet.
I wholeheartedly agree with your statement.
It seems to be to be more of the same. Good SEO will be the difference between success and obscurity. All i have to do now is find the time!… now where did i leave it?
The main secret to good SEO is to have good content, and that’s what makes a site stand out in every or any niche. This new tactic makes that the good to stand out and to rank more, so that the searches are more valuable. That should be the main goal to search engine optimization.
I think a range of information displayed maybe well a good thing for our business as we already use a mix of traditional SEO and the new wave of Social Media.
This is in order to combat spam attacks that these blackhat SEOs are doing, thanks to them more and more tweeks has been done by Google to filter out those bad apples.
My guess is that not many people will use it, even though it is a great set of features.
I doubt that many people use the Advanced Search function Google already has.
Thanks for making us aware of it though.
Once they put the Wonder wheel on the front page people just have to click to drill down/or refine their search just the tool for lazy people.
Love the way its all going, search evolving.
I believe semantic search is going to change the way web site owners optimize their websites. Join the h Club at Hakia to get a taste of whats coming, the end of pagerank and keywords.
SemanticRank does take credibility and age of information into account, though the company stresses that it does not do this by counting link referrals (popularity). Berkan tells Ars that a true semantic search should never require page rank; it should be about the quality of the information. Hakia evaluates credibility by analyzing the way a page is written (does it use proper English, for instance), who authored it, and what site it’s on.
Googles search options is a move in the direction of semantic search.
Its all about getting a page of good results not 15,000,000 results that I’m never going to view.
Google has given its Web search engine an injection of semantic technology, as the search leader pushes into what many consider the future of search on the Internet. Google has often been criticized for using what is considered an aging approach to solving search queries based primarily on analyzing keywords and not on understanding their meaning.
Give it another year or two and semantic search will rule.
The article is fantastic. But I believe that with rate videos are being integrated into sites and the awareness that are being created on it this days online, it may likely be the in thing for SEO magic of the future.
But the other points raised are equally quite important.
Selahebiz
I think this facility is not useful for general visitors or searchers. This is only for those who are well familiar with SEO or Google search. A general user will not easily understand the newly designed features by Google. Google needs to promote this feature in big way so that a general user also easily get know about this features.
I have to agree with Lee Odden: “Yes! But it doesn’t change the SEO advice we give: fresh content, digital asset SEO…” Search Options seem to help reinforce everything we tell clients. Use fresh content. Take part in forums, blogs, and groups: Find your customer, don’t wait for them to find you. Find new ways to take part in online communities. Having a fist page ranking and just sitting back and kicking your legs us isn’t going to cut it.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited about all of it.
so i would guess it should be good for ethical SEO’s
Very much useful information. Thank you for sharing the same.
I have tried this latest tweak from Google by searching for a couple of keywords and in most of those search results there is no Wonder wheel.
I guess depending on the keywords the options will be displayed.
I also received this article via email..
If this is going to effect SEO, I have to agree with Lee Oden when he said it doesn’t change the SEO advice..
These search options have been available for some time now and having already optimised my site for things like video and content based search on time created or such has greatly increased my traffic.
Nice features.
Not only is ‘content the king’, but now freshness and consistent updating of that content seems more valuable.
Fresh content has always been high on the SEO list of tasks, and with Googles time-line function, those that have been doing it regularly will see their site listings remain on the first page when a time slot is selected.
Might you realize a stronger page rank value if your site is in more date slots? Hmmmm.
Good SEO will reward non-stale websites, so keep the fresh content high on your priority list. People that are looking for the most current information may always select the newest date range, so get that fresh content updated regularly.
Enjoy!